Alex Okiemute Kabba
AS we celebrate June 12 as a National holiday and a person who participated in the struggle to enthrone democracy in Nigeria presently occupy the Number one seat in Aso Rock and Nigeria, I am going to relate a little bit of my role in that struggle, lest we forget.
As a Reporter with the NEWs/TEMPO/ PM NEWS, I watched at the then Area 10 Garki, Abuja, as Humphrey Nwosu, then Chairman of Nigerian Electoral commission reeled out the results of the Presidential contest between MKO ABIOLA and Tofa, state by state in that ephocal election. Nwosu was barely halfway through the states when the then military dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida summoned him and canceled the June 12 election, believed to be the best ever conducted in Nigeria. Of course, Abiola, the victor of tha election was later arrested by the googled dictator, Sani Abacha, after Babangida has been disgraced out of office by the fall out of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election. Abiola of course died in Abacha’s custody under the supervision of his dreaded killer CSO and man Friday, Major AL MUSTAPHA of ignoble memory.
The annulment set me up. I got angry. Why do some people in Nigeria think that they are superior to their compatriots on account of ethnicity and region? From there, I was determined to be a one man riot squad, what is now known today as guerrilla Journalism against the Abacha dictatorship! There’s no story I didn’t pursue, sometimes with money to bribe sources to bring out official documents confirming graft and corruption in the Abacha’s Aso rock. From the direct looting of the CBN by Al Mustapha through fake memo to the CBN governor to pull out billions of Naira,to the fabricated plots to ensnare General Oladipo Diya, Abacha’s Number two, to roping on General Olusegun OBASANJO, Ex military Head of State, and later two- term Civilian President and on a fake coup plot and jailed in Gashua, awaiting the hangman along with Diya, and other so-called conspirators in this ethnic-based, and phantom coup.
As compensation for my patriotic struggle to enthrone democracy in Nigeria, I was detained variously in Wuse police station, AREA 10 ZONAL POLICE HQ, flown to Alagbon Police station, Lagos where I was happy to be in the company of the great heroes of Nigerian democracy ( I will return to this) and transfered to Kuje maximum prison in Abuja, after the Aso rock high command disapprove of my defiant salute wave from the back of the black maria, after being indicted falsely for trying to collect a bribe from an official I never met.
Now back to Alagbon police station. There I was detained in the same cell with the honourable Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who used to coll me ” the fearless Journalist!”, Senator Polycarp Nwite and Attorney Ransome Kuti, God bless their departed souls and memories! Alhaja Fawehinmi, the wife of Chief Fawehinmi used to bring pap, (agidi, ogi) and akara to us the cell and we really enjoyed her culinary delights while shackled in Alagbon. I also met Benson, PRESIDENT BOLA TINUBU’S then PA, who was detained there in lieu of hi principal who could not be located, on account of egbe,( charm that makes one to disappear!) according to some and the rubble rouser, Jennifer Madueke, on whose account an Assistant Inspector General of Police fell into a scandal and early exit from the Nigerian police force. When Jennifer told me in Alagbon that she wanted to meet Chief Fawehinmi, the revered Ondo hero of Nigerian democracy bluntly refused.
Polycark Nwite confided that the Abacha regime feared him because of his background in military and civilian intelligence. I was very depressed to see him leave this world without ” enjoying ” this our democracy. Later, when we were all out of Abacha’s incarceration, I met Fawehinmi in his office that I was fleeing to America, he shouted, Fearless Journalist! What are you going to do in America!”
The heat of the agitation for June 12 and the struggle to enthrone democacy was getting to me. The final straw was when my superiors decided to put my name, byline about how Al Mustapha was using the name of Abacha to steal money from the CBN. When I saw my name Alex Kabba in the vyline, I told myself, just like the Americans will say, “I am dead!”
True enough, three days after THE NEWS magazine came out in July 1995, a joint task force from Aso rock raided my office in Garki area 11, but didn’t find me there. Later in the evening, I went to unwind at the Wuse Zone 4, Press center Abuja. Their front man, a a certain Lieutenant entered the hall, where we were having our beer. He came to me direct and said ” Alex Kabba. We need your help. Julius Berger is shot- changing as workers”. My spirit spoke. ” I am not Alex Kabba!”, I replied. He brought out a gun! All the Journalists rushed him to leave. He left. I hurriedly “varnished!” (Egbe!). Unknown to us, there was a lorry parked outside the press hall filled with detachment from the Army, SSS (as it was then known) Police etc.
I later learnt that all the 20 Journalists at press hall were detained there. No one could go in and no one could come out! The security team broke the ceiling of the hall as they searched for me.
Ndamadu Sule, the then Chairman of the NUJ, Abuja put a call to the Commissioner of Police, Abuja. He said they were not his men and that they were from the “villa”. I later put a call to my bossom friend, ALHAJI ABIDINA COOMASIE, publisher of Abuja Today, may Allah bless his soul. He confirmed that they were from the villa.
I later escaped to Lagos. Then words has spread that the military was on my heels. When I visited my friend, SAM OMATSEYE at THISDAY in Ikoyi, a Journalist screamed Alex Kabba! I quickly took my leave considering hiw some hollow Journalists betrayed me to the Nigerian intelligence service in Abuja.
Dislocating my life and that of my family in exile. A story for another day. HAPPY TRUE DEMOCRACY DAY JUNE 12! I HOPE THE PRESIDENT, BOLA AHMED TINUBU will remember the true heroes of Nigerian democracy scattered across the world especially The USA AND EUROPE, as the biggest beneficiary of the toils, death and struggle to liberate Nigeria from military dictatorship.
*Alex Kabba who was of the Abuja Bureau of TheNEWS, writes from New York